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Last February I wrote a blog post listing a handful of dystopian novels. It’s been almost a year and a half, and I think a further update is required. This time, the list is not one of recommendation, but one of personal consumption. These are the books that I think I need to read this year. I’d be happy for any further recommendations in the comments.

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (Milton Mayer). “Now I see a little better how Nazism overcame Germany – not by attack from without or by subversion from within, but with a whoop and a holler. It was what most Germans wanted – or, under pressure of combined reality and illusion, came to want. They wanted it; they got it; and they liked it. I came back home a little afraid for my country, afraid of what it might want, and get, and like, under pressure of combined reality and illusion.”

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (Timothy Snyder). “History can familiarize, and it can warn. Today, we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to totalitarianism in the twentieth century. But when the political order seems imperiled, our advantage is that we can learn from their experience to resist the advance of tyranny. Now is a good time to do so.”

Shake hands with the Devil: The failure of humanity in Rwanda (Romeo Dallaire). “It took me seven years to finally have the desire, the willpower and the stamina to begin to describe in detail the events of that year in Rwanda. To recount, from my insider’s point of view, how a country moved from the promise of a certain peace to intrigue, the fomenting of racial hatred, assassinations, civil war and genocide. And how the international community, through an inept UN mandate and what can only be described as indifference, self-interest and racism, aided and abetted these crimes against humanity – how we all helped create the mess that has murdered and displaced millions and destabilized the whole central African region.”